House Democrats slammed Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her inability to pass legislation to restrict stock trading for members of Congress.
Pelosi has often come into the spotlight as her husband made fortunes by stock trading, allegedly with the help of inside information taken from the office of the speaker.
Pelosi Using Delaying Tactics to Avoid Passage of New Stock Trading Bill
According to Congressman Abigail Spanberger, she consistently tried to strengthen the provisions in the STOCK Act for almost two years with no success.
The STOCK Act is a 2012 law that prohibits lawmakers from getting benefits from inside information while doing stock trading.
Many lawmakers pushed Pelosi to impose a complete ban on members of Congress for stock trading, but Spanberger suggested Pelosi and other House Democrats blocked her effort to revise the STOCK Act.
Spanberger further added Pelosi is verbally supporting the revisions in the STOCK Act, but she intentionally uses delay tactics. Due to this poor strategy of Democratic lawmakers, Spanberger believes the leadership of House Democrats needs to be changed.
Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia blasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House Majority Leader, Friday over the failure to pass legislation banning members of Congress from trading stock. “This mo https://t.co/YNw6bW2wLi
— New Right Network (@NewRightNetwork) October 1, 2022
Instead of reaching a consensus with the lawmakers, Pelosi is finding new ways to control the media and the public, Spanberger added.
Pelosi dismissed Spanberger’s concerns, claiming her recommendations have already been incorporated in the new STOCK Act, which the lawmakers are discussing these days.
Pelosi also stated it is useless to bring up the bill on the floor of the House until all Democrats are ready to vote for it. Likewise, another House Democrat, Chris Pappas, claimed he is disappointed because Democratic leadership is failing to pass the STOCK Act.
Pappas suggested he would continue to protest to bring the STOCK Act to the vote until Democrats stop using their unnecessary delay tactics, which are stopping the bill.
Of course Pelosi wouldn't support STOCK Act, it would cost her too much $. She has used her position in Congress for decades to make MILLIONS of $'s for her & Paul. Clearly abuse of power but she's a dem so she gets a pass on actions others have gone to prison for committing.
— slight1 (@slkl616) September 30, 2022
STOCK Bill Creates Division in Democrats
Currently, House Administration Committee Chair Zoe Lofgren is leading the efforts to finalize the draft of the STOCK act.
Lofgren provided the outline of a possible draft to lawmakers. The new bill will ban congressional lawmakers, their spouses, their dependent children, the president, the vice president, the Supreme Court, and federal judges from trading stocks.
Though Lofgren’s outline is already creating divisions within the Democrat Party. For instance, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer noted the bill does not contain enough provisions to penalize lawmakers who violate new stock trading laws.
Now, as the midterm elections near, lawmakers have already departed Washington for their campaign trials.
They are not expected to come back before the midterm elections, which means the vote on the STOCK Act has been delayed for months once again. Only the new Congress will be able to pass the revised act.
Rep. Spanberger believes House Democrats intentionally handed over the drafting process to Rep. Lofgren, as everyone knew her proposal would not be able to garner enough support.
This article appeared in Right Wing Insider and has been published here with permission.
